Photo shows cougar presence in Michigan

BRUCE TOWNSHIP -- Two sets of cougar tracks and a trail camera photograph of the cat recently discovered in the Upper Peninsula marks the sixth time evidence of the animal has been confirmed by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources in the past three years.

In an Oct. 10 photo provided by the Michigan DNR, a cougar is seen near Bruce Township.

Michigan Department of Natural Resources officials this month confirmed the first photograph of a cougar in Michigan. The image was taken by a trail camera as the feline trotted through a food plot on private property in Chippewa County's Bruce Township in the eastern Upper Peninsula.

State cougar specialists confirmed the location of the photo taken in mid-October by comparing vegetation in the picture and the camera angle at the site, said Kristie Sitar, a DNR biologist.

In early November, Sitar also investigated cougar tracks heading down a sandy hill on private land near Gulliver. She and DNR biologists Terry Minzey and Kevin Swanson photographed, measured and made a plaster cast of tracks they later confirmed were from a cougar.

"I guess what I would say is, to me, it is a large enough track that it is probably an adult, but that is really the only estimate you can make," Sitar said of the tracks that measured about 31/2 inches.

A third report of cougar tracks later was confirmed by the DNR along the beach near DeTour last month, Sitar said, although the water washed away all but one track.

Whether the recent discoveries were made by one or more cats is uncertain, according to Sitar. Cougars are thought to have been extirpated in Michigan in the early 1900s.

Three other sets of tracks were confirmed by the DNR in Delta and Marquette counties in 2007 and 2008, Sitar said.

The evidence discovered over the past month may be a sign that the cats are showing up more frequently, at least in the Upper Peninsula, but it does little to sway the debate on how the animals got here, DNR officials and their critics agree.

"It is consistent with all the evidence we have that the cougar or cougars in the Upper Peninsula are moving out of the established population in the Dakotas," said Russ Mason, DNR Wildlife Division chief.

The DNR has no evidence to suggest that cougars managed to survive in the state over the past century, or "any good evidence that there are cougars in the Lower Peninsula," Mason said.

"There is no reason to expect one won't get there eventually, but the likelihood of a cougar population existing below the radar is virtually nil," Mason said.

No cat has been killed in Michigan by hunters, houndsmen, cars or any other source since the 1900s, Mason said.

"I think people like to think Michigan is much more wild than it is," he said.

Other organizations, such as the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy, think cougars have been here all along, hiding in the millions of acres of cedar swamps and backwoods protected by private hunting clubs.

Dennis Fijalkowski, the Conservancy's executive director, said evidence of scat, tracks, photos and "tens of thousands of cougar sightings" the agency has collected over the years all point to a remnant, native cougar population above and below the bridge.

The recent evidence comes as no surprise, he said, considering the Conservancy has collected evidence of deer kills by cougars along the Upper Peninsula's lakeshore on numerous occasions.

"They have been there all along. (The DNR) just refused to look. The Gulliver area has got a 100-year history of cougar sightings," Fijalkowski said. "They are trying to put all these cougars 1,200 miles from South Dakota and that is just not how these animals behave. We have a breeding population of a small number of cougars."